ARCHIE ELAM is on his third career transition. Now 61 and living in Stamford, Conn., Mr. Elam is a 1976 graduate of West Point. His two-decade Army career included acting as head of operations for the 18th Airborne Corps 24th Infantry Division in the first war against Iraq.
The Army sent him to get an M.B.A. at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, a degree that started his private sector career in 1996. He was a manager at General Electric, United Technologies, Accenture and elsewhere, mostly focused on Six Sigma, a collaborative program for improving company performance by cutting out waste, and running customer relations management systems and overseeing other large-scale operations.
His next act? Working at a nonprofit organization. Mr. Elam recently graduated from Encore!Hartford, a four-month training program for corporate professionals over age 50 looking for a career in the nonprofit sector, public agencies and government.
“The stuff you volunteer for, you care about, you do for free, and then one day you realize you can get paid to do something you care about,” he said. “How cool is that!”
Baby boomers closing in on the traditional retirement years often seek purpose and a paycheck in a second career, also known as an encore experience, next chapter or unretirement. Whatever the term, nonprofit work — focused on addressing society’s pressing needs and promoting arts and culture — has a particular allure for many in this group.
“People want to give back; they want that social impact in the next phase of their life,” said Kate Schaefers, a career and leadership coach in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. “They also turn the three-legged retirement stool — Social Security, personal savings and retirement savings — into a four-legged stool by adding paid work.”
The timing is auspicious. The nonprofit sector has been vibrant in recent years. From 2007 to 2012, nonprofit employment increased every year, from 10.5 million jobs to 11.4 million jobs, for a gain of about 8.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By contrast, total private sector employment dropped by 3 percent in that period.
